


almost, but not quite

by Elendraug



Category: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elendraug/pseuds/Elendraug
Summary: on a clear day I'll fly home to you; I'm bending time getting back to you
Relationships: Arthur Dent & Ford Prefect, Arthur Dent/Ford Prefect
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27
Collections: Genuary 2021





	almost, but not quite

**Author's Note:**

> happy 42nd anniversary to one of my most beloved stories
> 
> RIP DNA ♥
> 
> these two are pretty damn close to being my first OTP, and it's been far too long since I've written for them
> 
> [check this out if you'd like to make tea the way Douglas Adams took his](http://www.h-tea-o.net/newsletter/G001DouglasAdams/teatalk/)
> 
> ♫ [zero 7 - destiny (photek remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZmCXebzeKE)

_SCREEEEEEEEE!_

Arthur lifts the kettle with an oven mitt, splashes boiling water into the teapot, and sets the kettle back on the burner for it to swiftly return to temperature. 

Steam. Teapot, swish. Water into the sink. More steam.

_SCREEEEEEEEE!_

“You know, I’ve been meaning to watch _Casablanca_ ,” Ford says, looking up from his folded hands. “Fifteen years here and haven’t gotten around to it.”

“Here?” Arthur asks, depositing three bags of Earl Grey into the teapot and draping the strings over the side. “Instead of Guildford?”

Steam. Kettle, pour. Water into the teapot. More steam.

“Right. Been meaning to talk to you about that, too.” Ford fiddles with a small stack of junk mail dated from months ago and marked _URGENT!_. “Are you setting a timer?”

Arthur waves a hand, then turns off the burner. “It’ll be fine. It’s just a few minutes.”

“Adds up,” Ford insists. “I’ve become proficient in counting. Quite offensive to certain parties, and offense is the best defense, as they say.”

He sits down next to Ford, at roughly 90 degrees around the table. “Who’s offended by counting?”

“Accountants, for one. Among others. Look,” Ford interrupts himself to fan out the brightly-colored envelopes across the table, and begins crinkling the plastic of the window mailers as if divining secrets from the sounds. “I have advice for you. As your friend.”

Arthur watches his hands move, watches the way _he_ moves, clearly following some offbeat pattern that must make sense in its own context but never quite coheres with the measure he’s inhabiting as the beats go on. “Go on.”

Ford lowers his head to the table and listens to a particular envelope as he prods a finger across the plastic. “Don’t try to hold onto smells. They don’t last.”

“That hasn’t been my experience. Not with truly foul smells, anyway. Seems like I can’t get them to go away, no matter how hard I—”

“That’s three minutes.” Ford gives him a severe look. Bergamot wafts over to the table. “I’m telling you, scents don’t last. Scent _memory_ , however; that's potent stuff.”

Steam. Milk, pour. Tea into the cup. More steam.

“Lemon?” Arthur asks.

“Milk for me,” Ford says. “Nothing lasts but compound interest and entropy, Arthur. That’s how Milliways makes its money.”

Arthur pours Ford’s tea and lets the mysteries of the statement roll off him like water off the back of an aquatic bird of the family Anatidae. “Aren’t those the same thing?”

“Yes. I’ll take you there, if I ever get out of here.” He shoves all the envelopes to the side as Arthur brings him a cup and saucer. “Where’s the lemon?”

“You said you wanted...” Arthur pauses, truncates his own observation, and retrieves a half-used bottle of lemon juice from the refrigerator. “You seem more agitated than usual, Ford. Is everything all right?”

“How much do you know about the law surrounding compulsory purchase? Eminent domain,” Ford asks, abruptly. He splashes lemon juice into his tea. The milk curdles slightly.

Arthur makes a face. “Not much. Why?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve taken care of it.” He takes a large sip of the tea and tastes two types of citrus. “I’ve strongly advised the local council to just once and for all work out where the hell people want to be.” 

Arthur wishes things would slow down for once.

“So what’s next?” he says, sipping his own tea. More steam. “Besides _Casablanca_.”

“A word with another planning council. Failing that, a word with some dolphins.” Ford follows the swirling eddies of milk within this storm in a teacup. “You know, I decided I was lemon for a couple of weeks.” 

“Did you.”

“It was a long time ago. Or, it will be. Or won’t be? Will not would have been.” He reaches for the teapot and pours the remainder into his cup, bits of debris and all where the filter hasn’t caught them. “Conjugation gets tricky. That’s entropy for you. Language inevitably decays.”

Arthur watches him drink the leafy detritus. “Where is it that you want to be, Ford?”

Grin. Tea, chug. Nothing in the cup. More grinning.

“I keep telling you all, it’s the green spaceships to keep an eye out for. But any spaceship will do, if you’ve got the right company.”

“The right... freight company?”

Ford smiles at him, overwide, with the gravity of six hundred light years of distance between this Cottington house and the toss-up between space dust or imminent supernova affecting Betelgeuse V and VII.

“Promise me you’ll keep a box of tea on your person, no matter what happens. Alright?” Ford seizes the credit card offers and tears the whole stack in half before neatly jogging them back into a tidy pile, their frayed paper edges tapped into place. “Else everything will be almost, but not quite, entirely unlike our story that you’re used to. Wioll haven be used to. Possibly.”

Arthur shakes his head, unsure of the significance but certain in his decision to trust the man across his kitchen table. “I promise.”

“Good.” Ford shoves his chair back, stands up, and tosses the pile of ripped junk mail over his shoulder, without looking and vaguely towards the trash, as if warding off ill luck. “Let’s get a drink, yeah?”

Arthur checks his digital watch. “But it’s not even—”

“Lunchtime? I might willan on-say something about that. Retroactively.” 

Shrugging, Arthur stands up, too. “Fuck it. Why not.”

“That’s what I always say.” Ford claps him on the back. “You _do_ have a VCR this time around, don't you?”

* * *

> _Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make._

—Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency


End file.
